


Ginny & Hermione Become Friends - Matches & Trinkets

by Spectrespecs_vs_Wrackspurts



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Developing Friendships, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29048664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spectrespecs_vs_Wrackspurts/pseuds/Spectrespecs_vs_Wrackspurts
Summary: Hermione has come to stay at the Burrow ahead of the World Cup.  But Ginny is nervous.  She had mostly avoided the Trio in her second year after everything that had happened in her first, and she's unsure what Hermione knows or thinks of her.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Ginny & Hermione Become Friends - Matches & Trinkets

**Author's Note:**

> Just my own head cannon from Ginny's perspective that includes the friendship she and Hermione share that was alluded to in the books. I started with where I think their friendship truly began to become close, mostly because Ginny was almost non-existent in PoA - after they get off the Hogwarts express she's mentioned by name only 3 times! (Got to love the search function on Kindle)
> 
> I've tried to line this up with the books as best I can. The books aren't mine and neither are the characters. 
> 
> Cheers!

Ginny’s stomach was clenched uncomfortably. She could feel bile teasing her throat, her chest constricting. She felt acutely aware of her body: Was she sitting oddly? What was she supposed to be doing with her hands? Surely she was breathing too loudly? She was alert, studying the girl setting her bag down next to the camp bed that had been set up next to Ginny’s in her childhood room. She hadn’t felt this way, not this extreme at least, since her first year.

Ginny had spent a lot of time these last two years just, noticing Hermione. Mostly because Hermione always seemed to be around Harry Potter, who Ginny could not help but to notice. Hermione always seemed to be in Harry’s orbit, except for that odd period of time last year when she distinctly wasn’t. She wondered what there was between them. This girl who seemed to have all that she wanted, that closeness with Harry Potter that Ginny both pined for and was terrified of. But Hermione puzzled Ginny. The girl seemed too mature, too intelligent, too serious, even more so when she was separated from her friends. That span of time last year when Hermione was distinctly separate from Harry Potter and Ron seemed extraordinarily arduous for the older girl. Ginny had almost reached out then, compelled to comfort the girl who seemed kind, if a little McGonagall-ish with her proper posture and studiousness, but who also seemed so sad, so lonely when not surrounded by her older brother and by Harry Potter. But she had resisted. She was afraid of talking to Hermione, afraid of what Hermione would say to her if she, Ginny, had approached her to offer comfort last year when Hermione seemed at her wits end in the common room, or when she looked tearful in a bathroom. It had gone against her better nature to resist, but she had.

Hermione seemed to know everything, but it was not clear if she knew what Ginny had done. That lack of clarity made Ginny leery, suspicious. Hermione was one of Harry Potter’s best friends, and Harry Potter knew intimately and exactly what Ginny had done her first year. Surely, Hermione by extension therefore would also know. She would know that Ginny had opened the Chamber of Secrets. She would know that Ginny was the reason Hermione had spent much of a school year stone-like and unresponsive in the hospital wing.

Yet there Hermione was, humming slightly as she straightened her things, everything lined up perfectly in a small section of Ginny’s room. Neatly, politely, comfortably. Hermione had always been kind and polite to Ginny, but normally when they spent time together others were around. A train compartment full of her siblings with Harry and Hermione in tow, or the Gryffindor table in the great hall. She wracked her brains if she and Hermione had ever had a conversation on their own. She supposed the closest instance was when the dementor had come into their compartment on the train last year, and Hermione had moved to put an arm around Ginny afterwards. She had whispered words of comfort and encouragement to Ginny in that moment, but even then, the compartment was full.

“I hope you don’t mind.” Hermione interrupted Ginny’s thoughts, grinning at her while settling down on the camp bed, “me staying in here with you, that is. But I am rather excited about spending some time together this summer, I suppose we haven’t spoken much.”

Ginny licked her lips, “No, not really. Ron doesn’t like having me around as much as Fred and George do.” she answered honestly.

“Politeness isn’t always Ronald’s strong suit.” Hermione answered.

Ginny snorted, more at the use of Ron’s full name than at the comment, and but Hermione seemed pleased. “No, I suppose it isn’t.”

An awkward silence fell between them, Hermione played with the blanket of her camp bed. It was now or never, Ginny supposed. Rip off the band-aid, give the girl a chance to back away from her now before it was too late.

“Listen, Hermione….” She began slowly, tentatively, the words caught in her throat. What was she supposed to say next?

Hermione looked up at her, and her face began to fall slightly, then a look of sadness played across her brow. She realized the girl had been hopeful for a friendship, and it looked as if Ginny was setting up a rejection, rather than offering her an out. Her face, the pain on it, made the words tumble out of Ginny’s mouth before she could think about them properly.

“It was all my fault, Hermione - I don’t know if Harry told you, but it was me, first year -I was the one who opened the Chamber - It was my fault you got hurt. and I’m really very sorry -I didn’t mean for it to happen - I didn’t even know what I was doing - but you got hurt and it was my fault and I understand if you don’t want to stay in this room with me and I can sleep in the den if you don’t and - “

“Ginny,” Hermione had reached out and put a hand on Ginny’s knee, slowing her. She moved from her camp bed and onto Ginny’s, putting an arm around Ginny and guiding Ginny’s head to her shoulder. Ginny didn’t even realize she was crying. A sob broke from her lips at the gesture and Hermione just squeezed her tighter, “Yes he told me. No, I don’t blame you at all. He explained what happened, and I’m here, I’m ok, and you’re ok too.”

They sat like that for a long moment while Ginny composed herself. She sat up finally and wiped her tears with the back of her hand, “I hate crying.” She said, her voice still watery but her eyes dry now.

“Oh I don’t mind a good cry now and then,” Hermione soothed, “don’t worry about it. Do you - do you want to talk about it?” Ginny looked up at Hermione then. She didn’t look uncomfortable, she looked almost clinical, curious maybe, as if begging for information but not wanting to intrude upon it.

“Do you want to hear about it? I suppose you deserve to know more than most people.” Ginny asked, trying to figure the older girl out a bit.

Hermione hesitated for a moment, “Yes, if you want to that is, I’d like to know…. Know what it was like, I guess.”

“Being enchanted by a dark wizard? Oh it was brilliant, only slightly more inconvenient than stubbing your toe.” Ginny cursed herself internally, it was a little early to go so heavy on the sarcasm, but Hermione huffed a laugh and Ginny felt herself grin.

She thought for a moment, looking away from Hermione’s face but keeping it in her periphery, paying with a strand of her hair for something to do.

“You know how people say that years or days pass like a blur?” Ginny could feel more than see Hermione’s nod, “It wasn’t like that. Things didn’t blur by me, they escaped me completely. The things I could remember, they were more like a series of sharp, cold breaths. Like if I spent the entire year in an ice cold bath, with water up to my chest, and someone was dunking me in, holding me under. The parts I can remember are those moments when I was allowed back up for air. Sharp and cold, but….”

“Panicked.” Hermione supplied. She sounded scared.

Ginny nodded. “Riddle… You-Know-Who. He was, younger. He was….” she was really struggling now. She hadn’t talked about this really, “He was like what you want a boy to be I suppose. He was charming. He listened to me. He made me feel as though he cared for me. Cared for me more than a sister or friend, but as if he were a boy I fancied.” She spat the last word out, as if it tasted sour. The bile teasing at her throat was back. "So, I wrote. I liked writing to him, the feeling of it. But the more I wrote him, the more I told him... the more he took from me, until it felt like there was nothing left."

They were quiet again. Ginny’s mind was racing at what she had just admitted to Hermione. What would she think now?

“This is the same diary that Harry found, right? The one that showed memories?” Ginny sighed, her chest tight, eyes stinging, “Well, he trusted it as well you know? He told Ron and I that he asked Tom Riddle to help him when he found you.”

Ginny looked at Hermione then, she didn’t know that part, didn’t know much of what had happened in the Chamber after Riddle had stepped out of the diary.

“He’s a bit dim sometimes, Harry, don’t you think?”

“I think he’s brilliant.” Ginny shot defensively.

“Oh I don’t know, spooky ghost teenage You-Know-Who in the Chamber of Secrets and he asked him for help before putting two and two together? He knew you had been taken, and there was no one else around. and he knew Tom Riddle belonged to a different time….”

Ginny huffed a half laugh. Laid out all like that it did seem a bit dim, but she’d never admit that out loud. “He saved me.” She said instead.

“You fancy him” Hermione quipped.

Ginny turned her head to look at the girl and she had an eyebrow raised, a knowing smile on her lips. Welp, no denying it, “He’s fanciable.” Ginny answered.

Hermione snorted and rolled her eyes, “I suppose.”

“I thought… thought maybe you two?”

Hermione snorted again, “No.”

“But you fought last year, you barely were around Ron and Harry, I thought maybe…”

“No… that was… that was a lot of things. They were mad at me about Harry’s broom, and then Scabbers… it was complicated.”

“They fought with you over Ron’s stupid rat? The one he constantly complained about?” Ginny asked. She had heard them fighting, of course. But it all seemed harder to track last year, she had been avoiding Harry a bit more, watching from further away than she had her first year.

“Like I said,” Hermione sighed, “It was complicated.”

“That seems pretty simple, actually. Comes down to one thing: Ron is a git.” and both girls giggled.

They struck up an easy friendship after that night. Deep, late night talks often provide the kind of kinship that bypasses common interests and land straight into trust. Ginny found Hermione to be brilliant and clever, found that her skills of keen observation matched her own, but often with different interpretations and outcomes. They both watched people and collected details. Ginny, observant of her brothers, looking for weak points to jab at with a one liner, found a detail and used it immediately, a burning of a match, quick and disposable. Hermione seemed content to observe and collect details to peruse later, as if trinkets on a shelf.

Ginny should not have been surprised when Hermione blindsided her with one of these trinkets the night before Harry Potter arrived at the Burrow. It had been an offhand comment, in response to her mother chiding Ron for not cleaning up his room to make more space for Harry. “We should have a treacle tart at dinner tomorrow mum, it’s Harry’s favorite.”

That was it, she had said it without thinking. Without enthusiasm or blush or begging, it was just a statement of fact. Harry liked treacle tart.  
But when she came back into her room that night after brushing her teeth, Hermione was sitting on Ginny’s bed, back against the wall, waiting, expectant, a knowing look on her face. Ginny moved to her bed and sat next to Hermione hesitantly. She didn’t like this look.

“You don’t just fan girl fancy Harry. You actually fancy him.”

Ginny blinked. What in the bloody hell did that mean?

“You know him Ginny. Actually know him. You knew his favorite dessert -”

“Everyone knows he likes treacle tart.” Ginny made up, she could feel herself growing red. She hated being blindsided by all things Harry, especially Harry himself. It always made her skin flush.

“I don’t think that’s true. Why don’t you talk with him, like how you talk with your family? You’re always so… quiet around him. He doesn’t blame you either you know, for what happened.”

“I know that.”

“So then why -“

“I can’t.” Ginny said simply. “I can’t talk to him.”

Hermione scoffed, “He’s just Harry. I think he’d like the real Ginny if he ever got to know her, if she ever showed up.”

“It’s hard to be around him,” Ginny felt butterflies in her stomach at the thought, “it’s too much, like staring into the sun.” Hermione scrunched her nose slightly and Ginny flushed again, “Eww… did that just come out of my mouth? I sound like Lavender Brown.” Hermione snorted. “It’s a sad day in the House of Weasley when their only daughter spits out the same sort of rubbish you can expect from a girl who’s been named after two colors.” Hermione gave a little laugh and Ginny, encouraged, continued, “Do you suppose her parents knew she’d be a bit dim so they named her after something she could just point to rather than spell out?” and Hermione was now rolling with laughter.

“I’m being mean.” Ginny said, laughing a bit at her own jokes.

“But funny. That’s what I mean Ginny, you should be more… you… around him. I’m quite sure he’d like it.”

“The world does have enough Lavender Browns.”

The girls giggled and gossiped into the night.


End file.
